Brian's Thoughts on Movies

We Bought a Zoo Cameron Crowe is a unique director.  In his stories the lead character usually goes through a once in a lifetime experience that shapes the rest of his or her life.  Crowe usually writes his own films and two in particular, Almost Famous and Elizabethtown, have been heavily inspired by his own life.  He only releases a film every few years.  I think Crowe likes to take time to insert his own voice into his films. Crowe’s films are among some of my favorites.  Jerry Maguire, Almost Famous, and Vanilla Sky are near perfect in my opinion (though Vanilla Sky is a bit polarizing, I think it is brilliant and an improvement over the original Spanish film Open Your Eyes).  I can pop in any of those films and come out of them feeling great.  Say Anything is one of the best teen films I have ever seen.  Singles has a lot of entertaining insights about dating in the 90s and is Crowe's only film without a central character, though Br...

Liam Neeson is one of my favorite actors and has been for since I saw him in a memorable part in a very unmemorable movie “Next of Kin”.  Neeson played Patrick Swayze’s redneck brother, working separately from him to find out who killed their other brother.  I could not stop watching him and his character was so much more interesting to me than Swayze’s, who was the lead.  Later when I found out he was Irish I was very surprised. During the 80s and early 90s Neeson was a solid performer in supporting parts in good films, such as The Bounty and The Mission.  He played a clever Nazi in a film I liked, though many others did not, called Shining Through.  Neeson always has a lot of presence and his characters usually have a strong sense of dignity.  When Spielberg cast him as the lead in Schindler’s List, I knew this would be a memorable role and it was.  After the incredible success of Schindler’s List Neeson played the lead in films for a few y...